GRIHA for Affordable Housing

INTRODUCTION

Urbanisation has been the most prominent global trend of the last decade. It is expected that 40% of India population will be urban by 2030, as against 30% currently. This is going to create a huge demand for infrastructure including housing. The shortage of urban housing stood at 18.8 million units in 2012 and is expected to grow with a CAGR of 6.6% to 34.1 million units by 2022. The Government of India has taken several steps to address this demand, one among many being the Housing for All' or Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) scheme which aims to bring pukka house to every family in urban cities by 2022.

In line with its philosophy and with the purpose of taking sustainability to the masses, GRIHA has developed a new rating variant called as "GRIHA for Affordable Housing" which is aligned to the PMAY. With the help of GRIHA AH rating, many low-income households shall be able to reduce the operational costs and GHG emissions by improving their resource efficiency. The rating would evaluate the environmental performance of residences holistically over its entire life cycle. The rating thus provides a definitive standard for what constitutes a 'green building' as it is a dedicated assessment cum rating tool, and a pre-fed calculator based system.

Eligibility:

All the upcoming projects that have approval/sanction letter issued by government agency (Central/State) confirming that the project is being developed as per Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) are eligible for GRIHA AH rating.

Affordable Housing project boundary must comply with the applicable municipal, state and local building bylaws related to environment and regulations in place where the project is located.

RATING PROCESS:

1. Online Registration - The project proponent can initiate the registration process by filling the expression of interest (EOI) form available on the GRIHA website. The registration is complete after the feasibility checklist is successfully completed by the project proponent. Once the project is registered, the project proponent will be provided with a username and password for documentation on the online panel.

2. Orientation workshop - The registration is followed by an orientation workshop conducted by GRIHA Council, which intends to provide detailed information of the rating, all criteria and to address specific queries of the project team. Orientation workshop is an optional service which can be availed by the project team on additional remuneration.

3. 1st Due Diligence site visit - A due diligence site visit shall be conducted by the GRIHA Council to validate site planning parameters during construction. The due diligence report shall be uploaded on the panel within 15 working days from the site visit, followed by upload of a compliance report by the project proponent within next 15 working days.

4. Submission of documents - As the project is nearing completion, the project proponent will upload documents for all criteria on the online panel with the user name and password provided during registration.

5. Preliminary evaluation - After online submission of documents, the preliminary evaluation is carried out by a team of professionals from GRIHA Council as well as external evaluators who are experts in the respective field. The documentation must be complete in all aspects for all attempted criteria. Any attempted criteria with incomplete documentation shall not be evaluated. Online calculators provided for specific criteria need to be filled in and submitted. The GRIHA Council professionals shall first review compliance of all criteria and establish compliance with mandatory criteria; followed by estimation of the total number of achievable points. A preliminary evaluation report shall be submitted within 25 working days after document submission.

6. Final Due diligence site visit - A due diligence site visit shall be conducted by GRIHA Council to verify the submitted documentation with on-site implementation. The visit will be done once the project is complete and all equipment's are installed. The due diligence report shall be uploaded on the panel within 15 working days from the site visit.

7. Final evaluation - GRIHA Council along with external evaluators shall evaluate submitted documentation and final due diligence site visit report in response to the preliminary evaluation. On the basis of this evaluation, GRIHA Council shall prepare a final score card within 25 working days after the project team furnishes requisite information sought during preliminary evaluation and due diligence site visit. Final rating will be awarded based on the final evaluation.

8. Additional Due diligence site visit/Green Awareness Drive - GRIHA Council shall conduct an additional Due Diligence visit post rating, for green awareness and education amongst occupants. This awareness program will be organized post 70% occupancy of the project.

RATING FEES:

Table 1 Rating Fee

Built-up Area

Registration cum Rating fee

5,000 sq.m & below

INR 3,00,000* + Taxes

Above 5,000 sq.m

INR 3,00,000* + additional built up charged @ INR 9/sq. m + Taxes

Fee for orientation workshop = INR 15,000 + Taxes (Optional)

All travel and accommodation of GRIHA professionals, for outside Delhi projects, is not included in the above cost and shall be arranged by the client.

*exclusive of orientation workshop charges

CRITERIA AND THEIR WEIGHTAGE:

GRIHA for Affordable Housing rating is a performance-oriented system where points are awarded for meeting the intent (appraisals) of the criteria. Each criterion has certain number of points assigned. Compliances, as specified in the relevant criterion, have to be submitted in the prescribed format. While the intent for some of the criteria is self-validating in nature, there are other criteria such as facilities for construction workers, environmental awareness, energy and water metering, etc. which need to be validated on-site through due diligence visit conducted by GRIHA Council during construction. The points related to these criteria (specified under the relevant sections) are awarded after verification through monitoring, validation, and submitted documents/photographs to demonstrate compliance. GRIHA Affordable Housing rating system is a 100 point system consisting of 30 criteria categorized under six sections such as, Site Planning, Energy & Occupant Comfort, Water Savings, Waste Management, Sustainable Building Materials, and Social Aspects. Out of these 30 criteria, four are mandatory and eight are partly mandatory, while the rest are optional. Each criterion except for the mandatory criteria; has points assigned to it. It means that a project intending to meet the criterion would qualify for the points. Different levels of certification (one star to five stars) are awarded based on the number of points earned. The minimum points required for certification is 25.